Every design for Kemijärvi

On a warm afternoon the sand at Kemijärven uimaranta fills with families, and the town slows to the easy pace of a Lapland summer. Kemijärvi sits in Eastern Lapland, between Salla, Posio, Rovaniemi and Pelkosenniemi, and its centre is the northernmost of any Finnish town. Life here runs on a mix of wilderness and work: sawn timber from the mill on the site of the old pulp works, the electrified railway that brings passenger trains up from Helsinki, and bays such as Papinlahti and Mikonhauta just beyond the streets.

The town carries long memories. Paavali Ollinpoika Halonen, its first permanent settler, made his home at what is still called Halosenranta, and before him the land belonged to the Sámi. In the Winter War more than half the buildings were destroyed by bombing, and a battle was fought on the nearby hill of Mäntyvaara. Kemijärven Kotiseutumuseo keeps those stories, and Taidekeskus Puustelli and the old hunting pits known as Pyyntikuoppia add their own.

Step off the train, see Pöyliövaara on the skyline, and you know you are home.